Sign up
Search
Advanced search settings

Search only in certain items:

Search results
All (563)
Content
People
Apps
Books
Orbs
Movies
Music
Podcasts
Shows
Tabletop Games
Tech
TV
Video Games
YouTube Channels
Videos
40x40

Hazel (2934 KP) rated Standing Alone (Matt Standing #2) in Books

Jan 9, 2022  
Standing Alone (Matt Standing #2)
Standing Alone (Matt Standing #2)
Stephen Leather | 2022
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I am a huge fan of Mr Leather's Dan "Spider" Shepherd series and although I haven't read the first in this series (how the heck did I miss that!!!!), I was pretty sure I was in for a treat and I wasn't wrong.

Matt "Lastman" Standing is being blackmailed to do a job for "The Pool", a shady organisation; his mission is to hunt down and assassinate Ryan French, an ex-Navy Seal who hires himself out to the highest bidder. This is not going to be an easy mission and Matt finds himself in the depths of the wilderness in western America knee deep in cannabis and up to his neck in trouble within a very short period of time.

With excellent and strong characters, an immersive plot and full of action, this is a great story. I also learnt a heck of a lot about cannabis farming - not that it'll do me much good but it was interesting nonetheless.

I very much look forward to reading more in this series and my thanks must go to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest, unbiased and unedited review.
  
40x40

ClareR (5726 KP) rated Blue Dog in Books

Sep 28, 2018  
Blue Dog
Blue Dog
Louis de Bernieres | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Full of the usual de Bernieres charm.
A really charming, quirky story. A young boy goes to live on a farming station in the Outback (Australia) after his mother has a nervous breakdown in response to the death of his father. It's clear he misses both of his parents, but he loves his grandpa (who, incidentally does an excellent job of caring for him) and loves the Outback. After a cyclone hits, he finds a little red puppy in the destruction and names him Blue.
I loved the descriptions of the Outback, particularly the cyclone and it's aftermath. Hopefully this is the closest I'll ever get to such a phenomenon! I'm very much a dog person, so anything involving a dog is on to a winner for me (but I've never been a fan of the anthropomorphised type of story since reaching adulthood - although Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, Watership Down etc were firm favourites as a child).
I've read Red Dog, which is the follow up to this novel, so there was a bittersweet element to this book, as I know how the next one ends.
Top marks for the story and just to de Bernieres' style. I'm a fan.